Fresh council strife

WE are preparing for the election of a new Geelong council, which will be charged with the very important duty of taking charge of City Hall and refreshing its mission to serve the public and achieve good things for this city.

In more general terms it will also carry the heavy hopes of Geelong to end the embarrassing soap opera of our recent years of municipal tumult and strife.

But as today’s exclusive report by the Addy’s City Hall reporter Shane Fowles reveals, regime reform may need to start at home among the existing senior management.

The circumstances of the departure of Joanne Moloney after a very short promotion and praise by CEO Kelvin Spiller are mysterious. Complaints to IBAC are ominous.

For weeks this newspaper has asked questions about the movement of senior roles in the council, about the remuneration of officers and about the procedure relating to their appointment — and there have been few answers.

Certainly the culture of opaqueness rather than transparency that reigns in City Hall does not match the standards publicly espoused by the current management.

When senior people move out of their roles or new appointments are made, it is unfair to all parties to hide behind over-the-top bureaucratic rules rather than have clear and open discussions with the public.

Given a ‘bully clean out’ is also occurring under the same cloak of secrecy — with no naming and shaming — it also creates an atmosphere where people who feel unfairly dismissed can be mistaken by the community for managedout bullies. We have in this space previously touted the good intentions and ostensible reformist aims of the senior management under CEO Kelvin Spiller.

That regime needs to openly — not secretly — make its case against a growing chorus of critics who say all is not well in our halls of power and that the public are being kept in the dark as to what is being done.